


Acrylic

by chai_pandemic17



Series: Saltwater [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Artist Yamaguchi Tadashi, Boys Kissing, Breakfast, Cuddling & Snuggling, Established Relationship, Kissing, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Nighttime, POV Alternating, POV Tsukishima Kei, POV Yamaguchi Tadashi, Painting, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, because i've been obsessed lately, but i don't say what it is, they watch supernatural, yamaguchi gets an art commission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-14 05:56:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29787480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chai_pandemic17/pseuds/chai_pandemic17
Summary: After their first day alone at the Tsukishima household for the holidays, the pair spend the night together. Their relationship is as familiar as the backs of each other's hands - but not what Yamaguchi has to say the next morning.It starts off with a laptop, a bunk bed, and a moon-shaped nightlight.
Relationships: Tsukishima Kei & Yamaguchi Tadashi, Tsukishima Kei/Yamaguchi Tadashi
Series: Saltwater [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2189511
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	Acrylic

_(Yamaguchi's POV)_

The pair sat side-by-side on the lower bunk, the curtain drawn around it, with a tall stool placed just inside the curtain, upon which rested the laptop. The glow from the screen dimly illuminated their faces, flickering with changing colors as it changed from scene to scene. A speaker hung above them on a plastic hook, connected via Bluetooth to the laptop for better sound.

Yamaguchi had given it to Tsukki as a gift last Christmas, and it had moved around the room before settling in its current spot after just a few weeks. Since then, after what must have been a hundred movies, they’d gotten used to the way the sound reverberated through the wooden bunk bed frame. At first, the odd directions some sounds were thrown - water splashing, for example, or glass breaking - had made Yamaguchi jump or shiver.

Now, they watched as two brothers traversed the country, slashing demons and banishing ghosts and slaying vampires and waging war against _angels_ , of all things. It was an American show, so they had to put on Japanese subtitles, but it was very good, regardless. Though there were no dinosaurs - at least, not yet - Tsukki seemed to be enjoying it. He hadn’t complained once since season four, and he’d never checked his phone during an episode. Yamaguchi took those as good things, and smiled a little, turning back to the screen with his head resting on the other’s shoulder.

Their sides pressed together, and the warmth, though familiar and grounding, threw just as much fireworks into Yamaguchi’s stomach as it had the first time. Wordlessly, he snaked his arm under Tsukki’s, finding his hand where it had been resting on his knee. Their fingers intertwined, and Tsukki allowed it with a barely audible exhale.

~•°•°---------------------°•°•~

“How many episodes was that tonight?” Yamaguchi asked as he slid from the bunk, shutting the laptop.

Tsukki, already out, stretched his long limbs, arching his back. Yamaguchi swallowed at the patch of pale skin visible at his stomach, and busied himself with moving the stool back into the corner of the room as he waited for a response. Tsukki was wiping his glasses on his shirt when he turned back around, squinting down.

“Three,” he said, finally. “And the one this morning.”

Yamaguchi grinned as he stepped closer, taking Tsukki’s glasses gently before he could put them back on. Knowing what was coming, he stood patiently, looking just slightly down at Yamaguchi with squinting amber eyes in the darkness. As promised, he wrapped his arms around Tsukki’s bony ribs, sliding his hands up his back and fingering at the short, blond hair at the top of his neck.

“Tadashi.”

Their noses bumped, then their foreheads, as they paused for a moment, simply breathing together with closed eyes.

“Tadashi,” Tsukki said again, this time a whisper, and Yamaguchi gave him what had been silently promised.

Their lips brushed, then met, slightly parted, soft, and warm. They moved against each other, tasting of toothpaste and faintly like the candy they’d shared at the theater earlier that night. They were swept up into a rhythm as familiar as the backs of each other’s hands, as steady as their matching heartbeats, and as private as the darkness of their shared room. It was midnight, now, and they stood there in each other’s arms. A fan they hadn’t yet gotten around to shutting off whirred, while their hearts pounded, and the room lit by the yellow, crescent moon-shaped night light Yamaguchi had insisted had to be plugged in if he was going to be able to sleep.

“Kei-” he finally gasped into the other’s mouth, between deepening kisses.

Fingers found their way into long, green hair and buried into it, brushing sensitive scalp that made Yamaguchi gasp. He pulled away, but kept his arms around Tsukki, instead burying his head into the crook of his neck. Tsukki’s hands stayed where they were, one in his hair and the other at his waist.

“It’s late.”

Yamaguchi smiled and hummed against Tsukki’s skin at the roughness of his voice, relishing it. He pulled back, just enough to look up into his eyes, heavy-lidded with sleepiness and the high of oxytocin. There was a blush high on his cheeks and on the tips of his ears, faint but ever so slightly visible in the darkness of the room at this proximity.

“Let’s-” Yamaguchi was caught off guard by his own hoarse voice and had to clear his throat, glancing away for a moment, embarrassed. “Let’s go to bed.”  
  


The corners of Tsukki’s mouth quirked up ever so slightly, and his amused exhale made Yamaguchi’s hair flutter on his forehead.

  
“Yeah.”

~•°•°---------------------°•°•~

_(Tsukishima’s POV)_

Yamaguchi liked to talk as he fell asleep. It was a quirk that Tsukishima had noticed a long time ago, and had since grown to almost rely on as he himself drifted off. He felt the vibrations in Yamaguchi’s chest, with his head held against it with soft but strong hands. His own arms enveloped the other’s waist, holding him close as he spoke softly.

It wasn’t quite a whisper, but it was quiet, gently filling the room like a lullaby. He rambled on about the day, mostly what he’d thought about the movie and the episodes they’d watched that day. But sometimes he talked about other things.

“Once,” he murmured, “we watched as many scary movies as we dared in the middle of the night. I couldn’t fall asleep until the morning afterwards, but now it’s one of my favorite memories. Us, young and terrified, clinging together as we made ourselves stare at the little screen of your phone.”  
  
Tsukki remembered, but he was drifting away already, too far gone to reply in any way. Yamaguchi didn’t mind - he never expected him to reply, and didn’t want him to, anyways. They both knew that if he did, he’d wake himself up too much.

Yamaguchi continued, a fraction quieter. “I think it was around Halloween, that night. I guess you couldn’t fall asleep until daylight, either, because when I woke up the next evening, you were clinging to me like you could never let go. I think that was the first time we slept in each other’s arms.”

His voice slipped into a hum in Tsukki’s ears, drifting around him like the blanket they’d draped across themselves. The sound and pattern melded into one, the vibrations falling into a heartbeat, the rise and fall of his chest swirling into the ocean’s waves…

~•°•°---------------------°•°•~

“Tsukki!” Yamaguchi gasped the next morning over breakfast.

Tsukishima had cooked this time, simple scrambled eggs with rice left over from the other day. They sat beside each other on one side of the dining table - the side facing the TV on the wall. On their right was the kitchen, but they resolutely ignored the dirty dishes until what would likely end up being that evening.

Tsukki glanced to his left at the phone Yamaguchi was holding up to his face. He chewed as he read the screen, squinting, before looking at him with slightly widened eyes.

“You got a commission,” he said after swallowing, stating the obvious.

“My first _big_ commission! Can you believe it!? It’s not just somebody asking for a painting to hang on their wall - it’s a _storefront!”_ Yamaguchi babbled, forgetting about his food and waving his phone around before bringing it back in front of him, furiously tapping out a reply.

Tsukki ate faster, knowing he’d want to leave as soon as possible.

Yamaguchi was a painter at heart. Though he’d begun to love volleyball, and was working hard to improve in his position as pinch server, he’d been painting ever since he’d found the stash of them buried in Tsukishima’s closet one day. Of course, he hadn’t been the best at the time. But over the years, he’d watched as Yamaguchi’s skills grew at an absurd rate, and he’d begun to accept commissions just last year.

He’d grown more and more popular over time, though he was still a relatively small artist. But this was a big step, they both knew: painting a storefront would alert the local community of his skills and ability to be hired. And especially so since the shop was on a street known for its many pedestrians.

Yamaguchi was a beautiful painter. If he could, he would have painted murals on Tsukishima’s walls, but however much they’d both desired it, they knew he shouldn’t. Instead, he saved up whatever he had and bought the biggest canvases he could, bringing them outside and painting his heart’s desires. He’d spend days, sometimes even _weeks_ on his paintings, and hang them throughout the Tsukishima household.

There were portraits of the family, and of teammates. There were beautiful mimicries of paintings famous in English and American countries, like _Starry Night_ by Van Gogh, the clock from _Persistence of Memory_ by Salvador Dali, and even a black and white portrait of Michaelangelo’s sculpture of David.

They weren’t perfect, but they were molded into his own beautiful and usually vibrant style. He had a handful of mimicries, but he preferred to paint on his own - using people, usually, as references. He painted hands and faces with reds and blues and purples and whites and yellows and browns.

But most of all, Yamaguchi painted Tsukki. Often, he was forced to stay still and be a patient subject as Yamaguchi worked, fingers soft and voice bright as he hummed along to music playing in the background. They were used to the room smelling like acrylic paint by now, though they’d set up a fan to keep the air moving, and they opened the window when it wasn’t too cold.

Tsukishima finished eating, and stood with a huff, carrying their dishes to the kitchen.


End file.
